SHORTS: STILL HERE, NOT GOING AWAY-PERSPECTIVES ON IDENTITY

SHORTS: STILL HERE, NOT GOING AWAY-PERSPECTIVES ON IDENTITY

Description

Ever since right-wing ethnonationalism broke into mainstream politics, the Western media landscape has been overrun by sympathetic stories of white citizens and all the reasons they were driven to support people like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen.

Absent from this narrative is the millions of people of color negatively affected by the racist political agendas spreading across the Western world. This absence is exactly what makes the following films so essential. They are all unique explorations of Asian identity in white Western society, providing an array of perspectives on what it means to be the minority.

In This Program

Daniel Lee / USA / 2017 / 10 mins

When Korean-American tennis fans Daniel Lee and his sister attended a professional tennis match, they weren’t expecting to make international headlines. But after French player Michael Llodra hurled racist abuse at Daniel’s sister, they were forced into the spotlight. This incident is the inspiration for FAULT, a funny and insightful short about the complexities of directly confronting racism.

Kevin Lau / USA / 2016 / 17 mins

Charlyne’s father wants his daughter to spend her first day at the Texas Institute of Technology, or TIT, getting straight to work. But Charlyne has other plans. Taking advantage of her newfound freedom, she attempts to lose her virginity within 24 hours, but finds that being a small Asian-American girl at a lily-white Texas school can complicate things, to say the least.

Sharon Deng / France / 2017 / 29 mins

In 2017, far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen made it into the French presidential runoff on a racist, anti-immigrant campaign. Though she ultimately lost to Emmanuel Macron, the bigoted sentiments that resonated with so many white French voters still have an impact on immigrants of color. This documentary explores the stories of several Chinese immigrants who struggle with their status and culture in the French capital.

Jin Au-Yeung

Greg is ecstatic when his short film “Connected” wins the $1,000 Grand Prize at an Asian-American film festival. The only problem? He’s not actually Asian. Fortunately, his Chinese friend Jun Yung agrees to pretend to have made “Connected” – as long as he gets $650 and Greg’s Netflix password.

Qianzhu Luo / USA / 2016 / 16 mins

Yang is Chinese. Not American. At least that’s what she tells herself. After she has a dream in English, she decides that she must prove that she’s 100% Chinese by throwing the best Chinese New Year’s party ever. Unfortunately, that’s not so easy in a country that doesn’t even officially recognize the Chinese New Year as a public holiday.

Tina Takemoto / USA / 2016 / 6 mins

A five decade career. A five minute tribute. Tina Takemoto’s rapidfire experimental film essay memorializes the career of gay Japanese-American actor Sab Shimono, using his expansive career of over 150 roles to explore the poetics of queer Asian-American masculinity.

Ashish Pant / USA / 2017 / 11 mins

Following Donald Trump’s candidacy, hate crimes against Muslims spiked exponentially in the United States. In December 2016 alone, the month after the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center recorded over 100 anti-Muslim incidents. And that’s just what was reported. But what is the human impact of this discrimination? Indian-born filmmaker Ashish Pant explores the personal toll Islamophobia takes on an individual and his loved ones in this devastating low-budget short.